Языковая напряженность и междисциплинарный авторитет в романах Р. Ф. Куанг «Вавилон. Сокрытая история» и «Катабасис»

R. F. Kuang frequently takes a deeply interdisciplinary approach in her novels, intertwining fantasy and magical realism with history, philosophy, linguistics, and literary theory. Her works examine and critique the cultural significance of language, where logic, language, and translation act as the metaphors of manipulation and oppression. The main aim of the study is to investigate how language use, linguistic manipulation and paradoxes influence plot and character development in the novels Babel and Katabasis by R. F. Kuang. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, the study examines how limited or unequal access to linguistic knowledge can generate tension between characters and institutions. It demonstrates how Kuang’s narratives show language not simply as a communicative tool but as a material and ideological resource. By subverting the tropes of Dark Academia, an online subculture that has become a literary genre, and by employing interdisciplinary authority, Kuang experiments with genre hybridity, critical theory, and linguistic concepts to critique power, injustice, and the academia. The study argues that Kuang juxtaposes academic ascent in Babel with epistemological descent in Katabasis. In Babel, she exposes translation as a technology and the tool of imperial knowledge, while in Katabasis she confronts logical paradoxes as linguistic failures in communication and understanding. This challenges the idea that interdisciplinary linguistic mastery leads to ethical or intellectual progress. The study points out that the two selected texts offer a productive site for linguistic investigation in the field of authority in interdisciplinary contexts and contributes to current discussions on sociolinguistics and narrative representations